The state House Judiciary and Transportation committees held a joint hearing in Pittsburgh Friday morning on various pieces of legislation by area lawmakers that would put an end to driver's license suspensions for individuals with non-driving convictions.

House Bill 42, sponsored by Rep. Rick Saccone (Jefferson Hills), was the main topic of consideration, as it would remove a license suspension for convictions such as theft, purchase of tobacco or alcohol by a minor, or carrying a false identification card.

The Clean Slate Act has gained attention across Pennsylvania by offering people with certain types of misdemeanors the chance for courts to seal their records, after which they would be available to law enforcement but not the general public.

Rep. Rick Saccone (R-Allegheny) introduced two bills that would add onto the Clean Slate Act by helping people with criminal records by removing the license suspensions for non-driving offenses.

As legislators in the state House of Representatives have been spending the last month or so mulling over how to close the $2.3 billion deficit facing the current status of the state budget, most of the proposals in that chamber have focused on ways to avoid or at least lessen the potential prospect of broad-based tax increases.

While a group of self-titled “budget hawks” have been working on a solution that transfers money from non-General Fund pools of money into the Commonwealth’s main checking account as a way to solve the issue, others have not hidden the fact that they’d like to cut their way out of the problem to close the deficit from the last fiscal year and align the current budget with estimated state revenues for this fiscal year—currently sitting around $31.19 billion.

Rep. Rick Saccone (R-Allegheny) recently sat down with The PLS Reporter to talk about so-called ghost teachers in Pennsylvania and his new bill, House Bill 167, and how that would limit the days teachers are allowed to be out of their offices.